Some solutions to global warming are blowing in the wind. With a cost per kilowatt roughly one-half that of geothermal and one-fifth that of solar power, wind energy is a clear economic winner while thinking of the environment. And this industry is blowing harder.

A $20-million pilot-scale biodiesel facility that can produce 15 million gallons annually will be built by biofuel start-up Ag-Oil west of Delray Beach, Florida, the Palm Beach Post reported recently.

Advanced Solar Power Ltd. (ASP), a start-up solar energy company, is currently participating in partnership talks with several companies after completing a concentrating solar power (CSP) prototype in Be’er Tuvia, Israel.

March 5 - BioMCN, the world’s first industrial scale bio-methanol producer, announced that it has received €36 million from private equity firm Waterland. The additional funding will go towards the continued construction of its bio-methanol plant in Delfzijl, Holland. The investment was received by sustainable energy company Econcern, who acts on behalf of BioMCN’s other major shareholders NOM and Teijin.

The Israel-based Galten-Global Alternative Energy announced that it will be making an initial public offering (IPO) on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). The group is currently producing biodiesel in Ghana from the locally-sourced jatropha plant.

UK and Switzerland-based Index Ventures announced March 3 the closing of a EUR350 million early-stage fund that will include cleantech companies. The Index Ventures V fund will be dedicated to early-stage and seed investments.

Konarka Technologies, a start-up company that makes a plastic that turns light into energy, received $5 million from the Emerging Technology Fund of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Business Expansion Initiative.

German water solutions company, Triton-Format AG, announced on February 16 the completion of a €10.4 million round of financing for organic expansion. The funding round was led by zouk ventures ltd., a European cleantech investment group, and joined by US-based Meidlinger Partners LLC, an investor with a strong portfolio in the water industry. Details of Triton’s organic growth strategy were not unveiled.

Swedish Xylophane AB raised 34 million SEK (US $4.3 million). Two new venture capitalist groups, SEB Venture Capital and Capricorn Cleantech fund, have joined the ownership group of the company.

Texas-based HelioVolt is about to commercially enter the solar photovoltaic (PV) market. HelioVolt’s advantage is its focus on thin-film products that are light and flexible enough for the building-integrated PV (BIPV).

Major green funder VantagePoint Venture Partners will invest US $ 1 billion in start-ups over the next 24 to 30 months, Managing Partner Alan Salzman told Reuters on Jan. 31. We are aggressively and actively investing," Salzman told Reuters at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "We'll probably back 10 to 15 companies over the course of 2009.

Boston Power, Inc. announced last January 14 that it had raised $55 million in Series D round of funding for the global expansion of its Sonata^R line of lithium-ion batteries. Sonata^R, Boston Power’s flagship batteries, will be introduced in early 2009 through Hewlett-Packard notebook computers.

SolFocus, the leading developer of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems said on Friday it has raised $47.5 million in the first close of its “C” round of financing for its manufacturing operations and CPV commercialization.